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I've Been An Athlete All My Life. I Was A Competitive Figure Skater, And Then When I Realized Skating Was Not An Adult Sport I Took Up Tennis And Played That Quite Seriously From The Time I Was About 18.

-Condoleezza Rice

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I've Been An Athlete

Condoleezza Rice

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I've Been An Athlete All My Life. I Was A Competitive Figure Skater, And Then When I Realized Skating Was Not An Adult Sport I Took Up Tennis And Played That Quite Seriously From The Time I Was About 18.

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I'm A Committed Republican. I Believe Very Strongly In Individual Liberty. I Tend Not To Think Much In Terms Of Group Politics. I Really Am A Kind Of Small Government Person And I'm Most Certainly A Fiscal Conservative And Strong On National Defense.

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Today's Headlines And History's Judgment Are Rarely The Same. If You Are Too Attentive To The Former, You Will Most Certainly Not Do The Hard Work Of Securing The Latter.

It Takes Courage To Set Priorities Because Doing So Is An Admission That American Policy Cannot Be All Things To All People - Or Rather To All Interest Groups

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Multiethnic Character Of America Is Very Attractive To People. They Also See A Place Where You Get Ahead, Not Because Of Where You Came From, But Because Of Where You Want To Go.

A Lot Is Being Done To Bring Additional Protective Measures, Particularly The Critical Infrastructure Locations Around The United States, ... There Is A Very Active ... Program Of Coordination On This Particular Period Of Time With Both Public And Private Entities And At The Federal, State And Local Levels.

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In The Segregated South, Education Was Almost Like Armor. It Was A Way To Put Yourself In A Category Where Even With The Slings And Arrows And Humiliations Of Racism And Segregation, Somehow You Had Better Control Of The Situation. I Always Said My Parents Understood That You Might Not Be Able To Control Your Circumstances, But They And Their Parents Believed That You Could Control Your Reaction To Your Circumstances.

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I've Never Really Been A Workaholic.

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I Stick To Playing Brahms, But I Love Listening To Led Zeppelin, And I've Also Been A Big Fan Of Earth Wind And Fire Since The Seventies And Of The Gap Band Since The Eighties.

I'm A Terrible Long-term Planner.

I Think There Are Plenty Of Men Out There Who Are Capable And Accomplished In Their Own Realm. You Don't Have To Be In The Same Field.

I Love Sports. I Play Golf Now, Which Is Relatively New For Me. I Only Took It Up About Five Years Ago. I Also Like Playing Piano, And I Love Being With My Family And Friends.

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Making A Difference

I Don't Like Anything That's "just An Escape." To Me The Best Part Of Golf Is That, Unlike My Tennis Game, I Can Actually Get Better. I've Probably Reached My Plateau In Tennis, But In Golf I Have A Lot Of Room For Improvement. I Really Enjoy Working On My Game. I Like Practicing. I Chart My Rounds.

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Mass Destruction

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Today's Headlines And History's Judgement Are Not The Same.

Differences Can Be A Strength.

African American

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Straightforward

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Every Life Is Capable Of Greatness.

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To See An African-american Elected President Means That This Country Is Really Finally Coming Full Circle From The Birth Defect Of Slavery.

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Finding Yourself

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Fortunately, I Started Very Young, So I Read Music Very Well. And My Favorite Composers To Play Are Brahms And Mozart.

I've Been An Athlete All My Life. I Was A Competitive Figure Skater, And Then When I Realized Skating Was Not An Adult Sport I Took Up Tennis And Played That Quite Seriously From The Time I Was About 18.

Even When You Cherish Democratic Ideals, It Is Never Easy To Turn Them Into Effective Democratic Institutions. This Process Will Take Decades.

Democratic Ideals

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There Are Many Other Arrows In Our Diplomatic Quiver.

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Most Days Are Not Overwhelmingly Successful In Your Life. And What Really Marks Whether You're Going To Be Successful Is How Well You Deal With The Bad Days, Not How Well You Deal With The Good Ones.

Being Successful

We Don't Want The Smoking Gun To Be A Mushroom Cloud.

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The Essence Of America - That Which Really Unites Us - Is Not Ethnicity, Or Nationality Or Religion - It Is An Idea - And What An Idea It Is: That You Can Come From Humble Circumstances And Do Great Things.

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Out Of Struggle Very Often Comes Victory.

Self Esteem Comes From Achievements. Not From Lax Standards And False Praise.

The People Of The Middle East Share The Desire For Freedom. We Have An Opportunity - And An Obligation - To Help Them Turn This Desire Into Reality.

I Think My Father Thought I Might Be President Of The United States. I Think He Would've Been Satisfied With Secretary Of State. I'm A Foreign Policy Person And To Have A Chance To Serve My Country As The Nation's Chief Diplomat At A Time Of Peril And Consequence, That Was Enough.

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There Is Nothing Better Than Being In A Classroom With Really, Really Brilliant Students, And Opening Up New Worlds To Them. That's What I Love Doing.

We [usa] Need To Deal With Our Problems Here At Home If We're Going To Be Strong Enough To Lead Abroad.

Once A Month I Play With A Chamber Music Quartet. I Play Almost No Solo Music Anymore Because I So Enjoy The Interaction. The Members Of My Quartet Have Become Some Of My Best Friends And So I Really Enjoy It Now In Ways That I Didn't Before.

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Any Time You Have A Situation In Which You Are Calling For More Time Rather Than Calling For Iraq To Immediately Comply, It Plays Into The Hands Of Saddam Hussein.

The United States Has No Credible Evidence That Iraq Moved Weapons Of Mass Destruction Into Syria Early Last Year Before The U.s.-led War That Drove Saddam Hussein From Power.

Mass Destruction

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[in] The United States, We've Always Been Held Together By The Belief That It Doesn't Matter Where You Came From. It Matters Where You're Going.

We've Organized Human Potential And Have Been Better At Using Human Potential Better Than Any Country On The Face Of The Earth. That's Because We've Recognized That Our National Creed, Our National Identity, Is That It Doesn't Matter Where You're From, It Matters Where You're Going. You Can Come From Hard Circumstances And Do Great Things. We've Got To Make That True For A Whole Variety Of People Who No Longer Feel That.

I Think There Are Plenty Of Men Out There Who Are Capable And Accomplished In Their Own Realm. You Don't Have To Be In The Same Field. I've Often Been Asked, "didn't You Want To Get Married?" And Of Course I Wanted To Get Married, But You Have To Fall In Love And Want To Marry A Particular Person. You Don't Get Married In The Abstract. So, Although There Were People I Felt I Might Have Married, It Just Never Happened.

Falling In Love

I Don't Think Anybody Could Have Predicted That They Would Try To Use An Airplane As A Missile, A Hijacked Airplane As A Missile.

[i'm] Very Fortunate And Blessed Person Who Still Has A Lot Of Living To Do.

I've Always Said That I Expected To Grow Up And Get Married Like Any Nice Southern Girl, But The Fact Is You Don't Get Married In The Abstract. You Find Someone That You'd Like To Be Married To.

But The Truth Of The Matter Is, We're An Open Society, We Want To Remain An Open Society, And There Will Continue To Be Vulnerability. That's Why We Have To Meet The Threats When They Are Not Yet Taking Place On Our Territory And On Our Soil.

Now, Al Qaeda's On The Run. Afghanistan Is No Longer A Base Of Operations. The Afghan Government Is A Friendly Government That Is Trying To Bring Democracy To Its People.

I Don't Think Anybody Can Take The Word Of Saddam Hussein And His Regime, And Certainly An American President And Allies Who Are Obligated To Worry About The Safety And Security Of Our Countries, Cannot Take The Word Of This Dictator, Who Lies, Pathologically Lies.

I Think The Word Of The United States Has Been As Good As Gold In Its International Dealings And Its Agreements.

As I Was Telling My Husb — As I Was Telling President Bush.

When Are We Going To Stop Making Excuses For The Terrorists And Saying That Somebody Is Making Them Do It? No, These Are Simply Evil People Who Want To Kill.

The First Republican I Knew Was My Father And He Is Still The Republican I Most Admire. He Joined Our Party Because The Democrats In Jim Crow Alabama Of 1952 Would Not Register Him To Vote. The Republicans Did. My Father Has Never Forgotten That Day, And Neither Have I.

No American President Can Support An Egypt That Calls Into Question The Historic Treaty Between Israel And Egypt. And No American President Can Support An Egypt That Doesn't Fully Recognize Women's Rights Or The Rights Of Religious Minorities.

I Really Wish That We Had Passed A Comprehensive Immigration Bill Because That Would've Really Helped Our Country.

There Clearly Are Contacts Between Al Qaeda And Iraq That Can Be Documented; There Clearly Is Testimony That Some Of The Contacts Have Been Important Contacts And That There's A Relationship Here

We Have To Recognize That The Reason That The Global Order That We've Enjoyed And Almost Take For Granted Over The Last Several Years Exists Is That After World War Ii, The United States And Its Allies Tried To Build An Antidote To What They Had Seen Between World War I And World War Ii. There, They'd Seen Protectionism, Beggar-thy-neighbor Trading Policies, So They Said, We'll Build An Open International Economy. And They Did That.

We've Been A Country That's Been Fortunate To Be Protected By Two Oceans, To Not Have Serious Attacks On Our Territory For Most Of Our History. And We Were Unfortunately Reminded In A Very Devastating Way Of Our Vulnerability.

I Think It's Very Humble To Believe That There Is No Man, Woman Or Child Who Should Live In Tyranny. That People Who Say, Well, Maybe Arabs Just Aren't Ready For Democracy Or Maybe Africans Just Are Going To Have Corrupt Governments, That Seems To Me Arrogant.

If You're Always In The Company Of People Who Agree With You, You're Going To Think Of People Who Don't Agree With You As Venal Or Stupid. I Constantly Tell My Students That If They're In The Company Of People Who Always Say "amen" To What You Say, Find Other Company. And That Is The Source Of Illiberalism, When You Are Unable To Listen To Someone Who Thinks Differently. That's When Democracies Are In Trouble.

It Was Really Wonderful Playing With Aretha [ Franklin]. I Knew That She Knew What She Was Doing, So All I Had To Do Was Sit In The Background And Vamp A Little Bit.

I Really Believe That You Can. Not Only Do I Think It Is A Part Of Public Service To Help Young People Find Their Way, Just As Professors Had Helped Me Find Mine, But I've Been Very Involved In K-12 Education Issues. I Started A Program Back In 1992 Called The Center For A New Generation, An Afterschool Enrichment Program.

I'm Very Glad My Mother Didn't Let Me Quit Piano Lessons At Age 10. She Said I Wasn't Old Enough Or Good Enough To Make That Decision, And She Was Right. I Remember At The Time I Was Shocked. I Did Not Like That My Mother Said Those Things To Me. But When I Got A Chance To Play With Yo-yo Ma Or More Recently With Aretha Franklin, I Thought, I'm Really Glad She Said What She Did.

America Cannot Do Most Of What Needs To Be Done Alone. You Need Friends. And We Have Good Friends Around The World. We Have Friends With Whom We Share Values In Europe And Asia - Thanks To The Forward March Of Democracy - In Latin America, In Africa, And Increasingly In The Middle East.

I'm Very Proud That President [george W.] Bush Took On Aids Relief. It Was The Largest Single Response By Any Country To A Major International Health Crisis, And There Are Millions Of People Who Are Alive Today In Africa And Other Developing Countries Because Of That Program.

There Are Some Places That Have Had Real Quarrels With The United States' Policies, But I Think The Country Is Very Well-respected Worldwide.

I Don't Believe For A Minute Anybody Allowed People To Suffer Because They Are African Americans.

I Find It Odd That Suddenly People Believe The United States Is This Islamophobic Country. I Think This Is The Most Tolerant Country In The World.

Every Good Leader Is Part Manager And Every Good Manager Is Part Leader.

I Know That People Look At My Life And Ask, "how Can I Achieve Some Of Those Things?" So, I Suppose In That Sense, Yes, I'm A Role Model. But I Try To Think Of Myself More As A Mentor, As Somebody Who I Hope Young People Feel Comfortable Approaching Or Writing To.

In America, With Education And Hard Work, It Really Does Not Matter Where You Came From; It Matters Only Where You Are Going.

I Think America Is Still A Bright, Shining City On The Hill - Not Because We're Perfect But Because We Struggle In Our Imperfections Every Day.

If A North Korean Ballistic Missile Can Reach Alaska, It Can Reach Vladivostok.

You Know, I Look At Vladimir Putin As Somebody Who Is An Eye-for-an-eye Kind Of Person. We Questioned The Legitimacy Of His Election In 2012, Secretary Clinton Did - Rightly, By The Way. It Did Have - It Was Quite Fraudulent.and So I Think He's Saying Now, I'm Going To Show You That I Can Do The Same Thing.

It's So Much A Part Of Me That It's Almost Hard To Describe Myself In The Absence Of [faith].

Describe Myself

Most Of The People Who Were Responsible For 9/11 Are Now In Custody Or Have Been Killed. But There Are Others, And They Plot And They Plan, And They Hope To Pull It Off Again. And While We Have To Be Right 100 Percent Of The Time, They Only Have To Be Right Once. So There's No Way To Overreact To That.

I Feel That We're Dividing Along Class Lines For The First Time In Our History. Now One Thing That Has Happened In This Reaction To Globalization Is That The Elites Are Not Respectful Of The Values Of Those Who Are Ordinary Citizens, So We Seem To Be Dividing Ourselves Into Ever-smaller Identity Groups, Each With Its Own Narrative, Each With Its Own Grievance, And That's A Problem.

My Favorite Quote Is Thomas Jefferson`s "the God Who Gave Us Life Gave Us Liberty At The Same Time." Well, He Was A Slave-owner. But These Institutions, While They Weren't Perfect At The Time, Did Allow People To Prosper And To Continue To Struggle And Build Toward Them. That's What You Need, Is Good Institutions And I Think People Will Eventually Live Up To Them.

You Never Cede Control Of Your Own Ability To Be Successful To Something Called Racism.

Being Successful

We Need To Move Beyond The Idea That Girls Can Be Leaders And Create The Expectation That They Should Be Leaders.

America Is A Country That Went Through An Extremely Difficult Set Of Circumstances Out Of 9/11. And We've Survived It As A Country, And I Think We've Survived It As One People. And We All Ought To Be Concentrating On Trying To Make Sure That We Move Forward As One People Out Of That Terrible Experience.

The U.s. Has Since The End Of World War Ii Had An Answer - We Stand For Free Peoples And Free Markets, We Are Willing To Support And Defend Them - We Will Sustain A Balance Of Power That Favors Freedom.

After All, When The World Looks To America, They Look To Us Because We Are The Most Successful Political And Economic Experiment In Human History.

We're All Products Of Our Environment, And I Suspect That Strength Of Will - The Feeling, "i'm Going To Be Able To Do Whatever You Put In Front Of Me" - Is Honed In An Environment Where Not Everything Is Easy. Ironically, Growing Up In That Environment, You Don't Have A Sense Of Aggrievement Or Entitlement. You Just Have A Sense Of Overcoming.

We Can't Afford To Let The International Community And The World Lose Faith In The Diplomatic Track.

For 60 Years, My Country, The United States, Pursued Stability At The Expense Of Democracy In This Region, Here In The Middle East, And We Achieved Neither.

I Talked About The Need For American Leadership, I Talked About The Importance Of The United States To A More Peaceful World, A World That Has Been Quite Turbulent In Recent Years, And Needs A Strong American Anchor.

Punish France, Ignore Germany, And Forgive Russia.

When You're In Government, Of Course, You Have Protection And You Have People Who Are Looking Out For Your Wellbeing, But You Can't Live In A State Of Fear. If You Do, You're Not Going To Do Your Job Very Well And You're Going To Give Yourself High Blood Pressure, Which Probably Isn't Worth It.

People May Oppose You, But When They Realize You Can Hurt Them, They'll Join Your Side.

Truly Remarkable Leadership Is Not Just About Motivating Others To Follow, It's About Inspiring Them To Become Leaders Themselves And Setting The Stage For Even Greater Opportunities For Future Generations.

There Is Not Going To Be Any Pass For Palestinian Leadership In Fighting Terror.

American National Security And American Economic Interests, Of Course - Every President, Every Secretary Of State - That Is The Primary Goal. As You Are In This Job And In The Work, You Begin To See, Though, That In The Long Run, Both American Economic Interests And American National Security Are Better Served When There Are Other Decent Countries In The World Who Are Both Your Allies And Even When Your Adversaries Are Acting More Decently.

I Believe Our Presidents Work Hard And It's The Loneliest Job In The World.

My Job Is To Try To Advance American Foreign Policy, To Try To Advance The President's Agenda On Democracy And Human Rights.

We're Not Going To Negotiate About The Terms Of Terrorism. You Don't Negotiate About Terrorism. It's Is Wrong To Engage In Terrorism, And There Isn't Anything To Negotiate.

Differences Can Be Strength Rather Than A Handicap.

...if You Are Overdressed, It Is A Comment On Them. If You Are Under Dressed, It Is A Comment On You.

The United States Is Willing To Exert Strong Leadership To Give Diplomacy Its Very Best Chance To Succeed.

I Remember Classes In College Where The Professor Was Espousing Certain Theories About How Blacks Were Inherently Less Intelligent. But I Learned A Long Time Ago To Give People The Benefit Of The Doubt, Not To Assume That Somebody Was Reacting To You Because Of Race.

First, I Wanted To Answer The Question I'm Most Frequently Asked: "how Did You Become Who You Are?" Well, You Had To Know John And Angelena Rice.

I'm Actually Genuinely Optimistic About The United States And What's Possible In The United States. And When You're Out Here, You See Americans Across Racial And Economic And Socioeconomic Lines Working Together. And You Maybe Get A Little Bit Less Cynical Than When You Sit In The Seat Of Kind Of The Epicenter Of It All.

Working Together

This Is Not 1968 And The Invasion Of Czechoslovakia, Where Russia Can Threaten Its Neighbors, Occupy A Capital, Overthrow A Government, And Get Away With It. Things Have Changed.

I Do Think People Have Suggested That It Would Be A Good Thing If The Reporting Were Accurate On Al-jazeera And If It Were Not Slanted In Ways That Appear To Be At Times Just Purely Inaccurate.

This Is The Democratic Process At Work, What You're Seeing With This Process Is The Iraqi People Embracing American-style Democracy.

You Might Not Be Able To Control Your Circumstances But You Can Control Your Response To Your Circumstances.

Leading In A Complex World Means Recognizing The Simple Things You Can Do To Make Things Better.

The Sooner You Learn That Life Is Not Fair, The Better Off You'll Be, Because You'll Spend Less Time Railing Against Life's Unfairness And Feeling Aggrieved And Entitled, And More Time Figuring Out How To Maximize Your Assets, And Your Talents And How To Deal With Things That You're Not Very Good At.

This System, Built On Free Markets, Free Trade And Free Peoples And American Protection, That's What Got Us From The End Of World War Ii To The Extraordinary Events Of The End Of The Cold War And A System That Was One Of Prosperity And Peace For A Lot Of People, Including For The United States.

I Will Never Forget The Bright September Day, Standing At My Desk In The White House, When My Young Assistant Said That A Plane Had Hit The World Trade Center - And Then A Second One - And A Third, The Pentagon.

What The United States Has Done Hasn't Always Been Liked Or Popular. But If You Look At Some Of The Most Populous Places In The World - China, India - The United States Is Not Only Respected But, In Fact, Popular.

I Think All Of Us Have Really Got To Redouble Our Efforts, First Of All, To Pay Attention To The K-12 Crisis. The Sad Fact Is That I Can Look At Your Zip Code And Tell Whether You're Going To Get A Good Education. That's Not Fair. And Secondly, I Hope That All Of Us Who Were Fortunate Enough To Have Benefited Will Put Our Time, Our Resources And Our Efforts Into Making Sure That Kids, Particularly Kids Without Means, Have A Way To Achieve.

I Love To Watch Football.i Actually Really Love To Watch Almost Any Competition With A Score At The End.

It Is A Dangerous Thing To Ask Why Someone Else Has Been Given More. It Is Humbling - And Indeed Healthy - To Ask Why You Have Been Given So Much.

I Certainly Have No Regrets About Overthrowing Saddam Hussein. I'd Do It Again. And, Yes, There Are A Lot Of Things That I Think We'd All Do Differently. Maybe We Made Some Erroneous Assumptions About The Fabric Of The Society In Iraq And About The Solidity Of Some Of The Institutions. And Yes, There Are A Lot Of Things I Would Do Differently. I'd Probably Work To Rebuild Iraq From The Outside In, Rather Than Concentrating So Much On Baghdad, For Instance.

I Believed Afghanistan Was Always Going To Be Hard. It's The Fifth Poorest Country In The World. And When You Fly Over It, You Realize That There's Not Much There. And, Of Course, It Has The Problem, Too, Of Being On That Border With Pakistan In Basically An Ungoverned Region That Has Given The Terrorists A Staging Ground. So It's A Very Difficult Place. But I Do Believe That The Mission There Can Succeed If Success Is Defined As Helping The Afghans To Prevent The Taliban From Being An Existential Threat To The Afghan Government.

I Believe In Having A Private Life.

The Political Face Of Europe Is One That Has Said Very Clearly That It Wants Cooperation And Friendship With The United States.

Well, There Are Many Things, Whenever You Look Back, That You Would've Done Differently. We're All Human. We Do Our Best At The Time. I Really Wish That We Had Passed A Comprehensive Immigration Bill Because That Would've Really Helped Our Country. We Came Close, But We Couldn't.

The American Founding Fathers Gave Us Courts, Independent Jurists. They Left Room For Civil Society, Which Meant That Citizens Could Directly Associate In Order To Bring Pressure On Their Governments. And They Gave Us A Free Press. They Understood That You Might Have In The Presidency Someone Who Wanted To Arrogate Power Into Themselves. And They Believed That Was Dangerous, Having Just Experienced King George. And So They Built A Balanced System.

In Any Country, If You Don't Have Countervailing Institutions, The Power Of Any One President Is Problematic For Democratic Development.

Great Leaders Never Accept The World As It Was And Always Work For The World As It Should Be

I Worry That The Weakness - Particularly Of Our Public Schools - Is Going To Make That Less And Less True For Everybody. And If We Ever Lose That As Our Core, Then We're Going To Lose Our Confidence. We're Not Going To Lead. We're Going To Protect. We're Going To Turn Inward. That Would Be Very Bad For The World. So As A Former Secretary Of State, I Think I Can Advocate For Education As A National Security Priority.

America Is A Remarkable Place In That Social Attitudes Change Almost Imperceptibly, And Then You Wake Up The Next Day And They've Changed. But They've Been Changing All The Time.

Does Anybody Think These People Were Just Sitting Around Drinking Tea?

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Mikhail Bulgakov

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